Thursday, November 20, 2014

Cinder by Marissa Meyer

Genre: Urban Fantasy / Steampunk / Fairy Tale / China / Dystopia

Year Published: 2012

Number of Pages: 390 pages

Date Read: 11/20/2014

Publisher: Feiwel and Friends

Series: The Lunar Chronicles #1

I have read many different interpretations of my favorite
fairy tales over the years, but there is one type of fairy tale retelling that
I had never stumbled upon before: STEAMPUNK
CINDERELLA!It seriously is better
than it sounds as Marissa Meyer has
created one awesome retelling of “Cinderella”
in the form of “Cinder!”

In the city of New Beijing, Cinder is a sixteen year old
girl who happens to be a cyborg and she lives with her cruel stepmother Adri
along with her two stepsisters Pearl and Peony.Pearl is just like her stepmother Adri as she is cruel towards Cinder
also, while Peony on the other hand actually cares about Cinder and is the only
person who treats her kindly.One day,
Cinder’s whole world changes drastically when she meets up with the charming
Prince Kai and he asks her to fix his android for him.Of course, Cinder wonders why Prince Kai
wants her to urgently fix his android and this incident led to so many events
that would affect Cinder in so many ways, such as her stepsister Peony suddenly
being affected by the dreaded plague that is affecting the city.When Adri finds out about Peony’s condition,
she immediately blames Cinder for getting Peony sick and she forces Cinder to
volunteer for the plague research program that was responsible for taking the
lives of so many cyborgs such as Cinder.When Cinder meets Doctor Dmitri Erland, the head of the research
facility, she will soon discover that she is no ordinary cyborg and the
discovery of her secret origins might be able to change everything for the
world!

Wow, how could I seriously not have read this book years ago
when it first came out?I mean, I had to
not be paying attention to the book news during that time to not notice the
rave that this book was receiving!Anyway, I was simply blown away by the creativity and intensity of this
book and Marissa Meyer did a
brilliant job at retelling the classic “Cinderella”
story in a dystopian and steampunk society!I loved the way that Marissa
Meyer wrote all of the characters, especially Cinder, Prince Kai, Iko and
Peony (probably the most sympathetic characters in the entire book). I really enjoyed Cinder as a character as she
is shown to be a strong female protagonist who happens to be a cyborg and I
loved the fact that even though Cinder is a cyborg, she still has human
emotions like love and terror that makes me really relate to her
character.I also loved her relationship
with various characters in this book, such as Prince Kai, Iko and Peony.I loved the fact that Peony treated Cinder
like her own sister and it was truly tragic to see her get the plague so early
on in the book as it made me tear up a bit since I really loved Peony’s
character and I did not want to see her get taken out of the story so early
on.I really loved Iko, Cinder’s android
as she provided so much comic relief to the story and was such a great
companion to Cinder and I would love to see more of Iko in future “Lunar Chronicles” books!And last but certainly not least, Prince Kai
himself and man was he one awesome hero of this story!I loved the way that Prince Kai flirted with
Cinder, despite not knowing that Cinder is a cyborg and I would have loved to
see more moments between Cinder and Prince Kai in the future books!I was also quite interested in Queen Levana’s
character, the queen from the planet Luna, since she definitely seems like a
threat to both Prince Kai and Cinder and she is probably the scariest character
in this book since she uses her mind control to make people do whatever she
wants, which is quite a frightening thought!Marissa Meyer also did a brilliant
job at developing the world of New Beijing as you can feel the Chinese
influence throughout the book through the culture of the city and through the
characters’ outfits, which Marissa Meyer
goes into great detail with in the descriptions.I was pretty interested in seeing how New
Beijing was created after World War IV and seeing how the city has become a
dystopia ever since the war.

For anyone who does not like scary moments in a book, this
book has plenty moments that might scare some people such as the scene where
Cinder is being operated on and the fact that Queen Levana can mind control
people to make them commit suicide if she likes.

Overall, “Cinder”
is a truly fantastic book that fans of the classic “Cinderella” story will easily fall in love with and I am
definitely checking out the sequels, “Scarlet”
and “Cress” soon!

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Hello! I'm Ronyell and anyone who wants to be my friend is free to become friends with me! Also, I love followers on my blog, since I have so many great things to talk about the various books I read from time to time. I love to read, exercise, sleep and surf on the internet, with reading being my most favorite activity.
I also have a blog website dedicated to Rabbit Ears at:
www.rabbitearsblog.webs.com